It's that time of year again! Ah yes... the storied history of the racing bicycle, the gorgeous landscape of the most cultured country on earth, the triumph of shear personal will against intolerable amounts of self-inflicted pain... And performance enhancing drugs, of course. I can remember watching the Tour de France "recaps" on CBC Sports Television as a kid, during Greg Lemond's era, and later watching the stages daily during summer rowing travels in Europe (I spent several weeks in France in July of 1994 and every evening was spent recovering while watching the tour). However, it wasn't until Lance Armstrong's famous "look back" at the base of Alpe D'Huez in 2001 that I got hooked. I was on a cycling tour in France with Meg at the time. And I was near a town called Anduz in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It was hot as hell and I was crammed into a little roadside cafe at midday, or was it a cafe in the camp site? I can't recall... However, I can remember perfectly the gestures of shock and enthusiasm (a little old fellow in a black beret screaming "Mon dieu c'est incroyable!" at the TV set) as Armstrong scaled that famous climb - seemingly inhumanly - as he first looked back to Ullrich, his German nemesis, and then tore off to victory. There is only one word to describe that moment in the tour's history: awesome. Regardless of the plague of recent doping scandals (which Armstrong was never touched by during his career, but have lived on in his retirement via the rumour mill) and the very uncertain future of a sport that have always had a certain flair for the unexpected, unintended, I will watch this year again hoping against reason for 'a good result.' It is impossible to tell whether or not the sport has finally come clean, or if that even matters these days in professional cycling. But the lure of the most difficult of human athletic feats, the grand scale of the event, the magical images it creates year upon year, will captivate me again as it has many more cyclists over the years. I will leave you with one of the great battles on the switchbacks of Alpe D'Huez! Vive Le Tour!
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Vive Le Tour!
It's that time of year again! Ah yes... the storied history of the racing bicycle, the gorgeous landscape of the most cultured country on earth, the triumph of shear personal will against intolerable amounts of self-inflicted pain... And performance enhancing drugs, of course. I can remember watching the Tour de France "recaps" on CBC Sports Television as a kid, during Greg Lemond's era, and later watching the stages daily during summer rowing travels in Europe (I spent several weeks in France in July of 1994 and every evening was spent recovering while watching the tour). However, it wasn't until Lance Armstrong's famous "look back" at the base of Alpe D'Huez in 2001 that I got hooked. I was on a cycling tour in France with Meg at the time. And I was near a town called Anduz in the Languedoc-Roussillon region. It was hot as hell and I was crammed into a little roadside cafe at midday, or was it a cafe in the camp site? I can't recall... However, I can remember perfectly the gestures of shock and enthusiasm (a little old fellow in a black beret screaming "Mon dieu c'est incroyable!" at the TV set) as Armstrong scaled that famous climb - seemingly inhumanly - as he first looked back to Ullrich, his German nemesis, and then tore off to victory. There is only one word to describe that moment in the tour's history: awesome. Regardless of the plague of recent doping scandals (which Armstrong was never touched by during his career, but have lived on in his retirement via the rumour mill) and the very uncertain future of a sport that have always had a certain flair for the unexpected, unintended, I will watch this year again hoping against reason for 'a good result.' It is impossible to tell whether or not the sport has finally come clean, or if that even matters these days in professional cycling. But the lure of the most difficult of human athletic feats, the grand scale of the event, the magical images it creates year upon year, will captivate me again as it has many more cyclists over the years. I will leave you with one of the great battles on the switchbacks of Alpe D'Huez! Vive Le Tour!
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